The meaning of the Numbers
by Technomancer3301
Summary: Alex Mason finally reveals what the Numbers mean and how to create more numbers.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAMERS & CITATIONS: CoD Belongs to Treyarch or whoever owns the rights now. It has moved so many times now that lost track. FAIR USE, DON'T LIKE IT CHECK YOUR PRIVILAGE!

Alex Mason Speaking:

"Okey, because you people will not stop spamming the internet with that annoying phrase: "THE NUMBERS MASON! WHAT DO THEY MEAN!?" and since you people are obviously too stupid to look up the term Numbers Stations this is the moment you all have been eagerly waiting for. I AM FINALLY GOING TO TELL YOU IDIOTS WHAT THE FUCKING NUMBERS MEAN! SO PAY ATTENTION!"

"First a little history lesson: Back in the days of the Cold War radio spooks started reporting hearing strange broadcasts on the outer limits of the bands in obscure frequencies. Mysterious voices calling out random strings of numbers for seemingly no reason. These voices ranged from women to men and even children and the broadcasts were often coupled with snippets of music, noises, and beeps. You could hear them all over the bands in fact and they spoke in many different languages ranging from English, Spanish, Czech, Russian, German, Korean, and even Chinese."

"Now no one really knew what these broadcasts were for and there were many theories as to who was behind them and what their purpose was. And they ranged from Drug runners, to radio pranksters all the way to espionage. Because no one would ever talk about who was running these stations and not knowing what they were called, they eventually became known as the Numbers Stations. There are now multiple groups that are dedicated to monitoring and recording these stations one of them being the European Numbers Intelligence Gathering & Monitoring Association or ENIGMA 2000 which publishes a monthly newsletter."

"There was one person who decided to record, collect, and archive them and released them into a 4 ultimately expanded to 5 disc box set called the Conet Project taken from a Czech word misheard on one of these recordings. Achking Fernandes was his name and he owned an indie music labeling business called Irdial and he stumbled upon the Numbers Stations by accident and became obsessed with them. In fact you can download the entire 4 disc edition legally at . And like a moron I actually listened to the entire 4 disc edition of this box set. That brought back so many bad memories. I couldn't stop hearing the numbers in my head for weeks!"

"Eventually they got some nicknames like these:

Lincolnshire Poacher (the most famous one run by MI6)

Swedish Rhapsody

The English Lady

Oblique (Polish)

English Man (Polish)

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (MOSSAD)

Atencion (Cuban DGI)

The Gongs (Stasi)

Counting Station (CIA)

The Russian Man (KGB)

Bulgarian Betty

Spanish Lady (Stasi)

The Polytone Stations XPL, XPH, XPA, XPA2 (KGB, GRU, FSB)

Eastern Music Station (Egypt)

Magnetic Fields (France)

New Star Broadcasting (Taiwan)

Tyrolean Music Station (France)

Cherry Ripe (MI6)

to name a few."

"Another person Simon Mason yeah we both share the same last name unfortunately. Has a massive collection of Numbers Station related stuff and wrote Secret Signals The Euro Numbers Mystery. There is even someone who has access to an actual Numbers Machine too."

"Now out of all the theories about what these stations are for, espionage is the correct one. That is why they are sometimes called Spy Numbers Stations. And there is proof that Intelligence Agencies use them. Multiple Cuban Spies in the US were caught listening to the Atencion Numbers Station, and two more in Germany were caught listening to the XPA Polytone Station. There are declassified documents that confirm the use of Numbers Stations, some stations have been tracked down. There is even a German Document that explains how to decode a Numbers Station."

"You can even still hear them on the air today!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Okay so I figured since we are talking Numbers Stations I figured that it would be nice to know how to potentially decode one of these broadcasts. Thankfully I happen to have the cipher memorized. Well more like forcefully implanted into my head to be exact! Ugh... This is gonna be hard to explain. So anyway the Numbers Stations use a more complex version of the proverbial secret decoder ring. Basically they use a simple substitution alphabet like this."

A=0, B=1, C=2, D=3, E=4, F=5, G=6, H=7, I=8, J=9, K=10, L=11, M=12, N=13, O=14, P=15, Q=16, R=17, S=18, T=19, U=20, V=21, W=22, X=23, Y=24, Z=25

"So our alphabet code is A equals 0 on up to Z equals 25. Now the Numbers Stations use what is known as a One Time Pad which is single use alphabetical key tied to a message given numerically. This is the one and only cipher that is been proven to be mathematically unbreakable provided that you never use the same key twice, the keys are generated in a truly random manner, each key is the exact same size as the message of larger, every key is destroyed immediately after use by burning or something like that, and that no unauthorized personnel ever see your keys."

"So let's say we want to send the word HEY to our fellow spies. Not that long, 3 letters. So today's predetermined key is PUJ. Uh, keys can go on indefinitely depending on the size of the message."

"So to encrypt a message you take the numerical value of the letters of your message and add the numerical values of your key to them."

"So in this case H is 7, E is 4, and Y is 24 for our message and P is 15, U is 20, and J is 9 for our key. Now we add the numbers up:

7 + 15 = 22, 4 + 20 = 24, and 24 + 9 = 33. Now we don't want any numbers larger then 25 so subtract 26 from the 33 to get 7 as the result."

"So now we have our coded message that we breadcast: 22, 24, 7."

"Now to decrypt a message we do the opposite. We take the numbers that come from the coded message and subtract the numbers from our key."

"So 22 - 15 = 7, 24 - 20 = 4, and 7 - 9 = -2. Now if you have a negative number you'll need another key or another code alphabet what ever you want to call it:"

Z=-1, Y=-2, X=-3, W=-4, V=-5, U=-6, T=-7, S=-8, R=-9, Q=-10, P=-11, O=-12, N=-13, M=-14, L=-15, K=-16, J=-17, I=-18, H=-19, G=-20, F=-21, E=-22, D=-23, C=-24, B=-25, A=-26

"So our -2 becomes a Y or if you don't want to play that way you can add 26 to the -2 and wind up to the original 24 that we had earlier."

"So our message is 7 = H, 4 = E, and 24 = Y: HEY."

"I need to take a break, I don't feel so well."

Links that further explain what the Numbers mean:

Read the Spooks and ENIGMA 2000 Newsletters. www . numbersoddities . nl

Listen to the Numbers live on WebSDR and blog detailing insider knowledge of the stations. priyom . org

ENIGMA 2000 Official Website. www . brogers . dsl . pipex enigma2000 /

Numbers Stations Information Research Center formally the International Numbers Station Monitoring Association. www . numbers - stations . com

Simon Mason's Numbers Stations Site. www . simonmason . karoo page30 . html


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